Edelweiss
by Allekha
Summary: Sometimes Austria cooks and Hungary fights, and sometimes Hungary does embroidery and Austria plays music, and that's the way things are. Slice of life Hungary/Austria.


A/N: Written for queer_fest 2011 on LJ, for the prompt _Any fandom: Any pairing,_ _They don't fit into traditional ideas of Masculine/Feminine, and that's the way they like it best._

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><p>In the mornings Austria makes breakfast half the time, because Hungary can only cook a few things and they all come out of a frying pan (excepting a few sweets) and one does get tired of eggs and pancakes every morning. Hungary has never complained; instead, she smiles and compliments his cooking and eats every last bite off her plate, even if it's only fruit salad with yogurt.<p>

~!~

In the evening, Hungary likes to work on embroidery. It's always amazed Austria that she loves it so much, when regular sewing tends to bore her unless she has something else to do at the same time, which means her stitches tend to be large and her patterns simple. But embroidery? She can spend hours on colorful Kalosca flowers or black-and-red cross-stitch, embroidering every apron she has ever owned and most of the rest of her wardrobe. Even Austria's apron is filled with pink and yellow flowers.

Sometimes Austria joins her on the sofa with stitching of his own, when something needs repair. Or perhaps he might work on his music, transcribing the melodies wandering through his head or playing the ones already written down. When it's time to go to sleep, Hungary wraps her arms around him and waits until he's finished to kiss him.

~!~

They have a nice garden. Hungary says it gives her inspiration for her embroidery, and it does look pretty. Not that Austria wants to do anything but look. The thought of digging makes him twitch. Ugh, all that dirt! Instead, Hungary sheds her petticoats and pulls on an old shirt of his wearing too thin and some pants that are too threadbare to bother patching, and she tucks her hair up in a hat and digs. Austria sits in the shade and reads, occasionally giving his opinion when Hungary asks for advice on where to put which flowers. But for the most part he simply enjoys his book.

Hungary is always filthy afterword - mud on her knees and caked on her hands and jammed under her fingernails and somehow it even gets into her hair, sometimes. If it's warm she skips her boots and Austria refuses to let her walk into the house until she washes her feet off thoroughly. There is always a bit of glow about her from the sunlight, her cheeks a pretty shade of pink and a smile on her face, even as she drops exhausted into a chair.

In Austria's opinion, the best part about gardening is washing the dirt off of Hungary later. In the bath he slowly scrubs at her fingers with a soapy washcloth, working the dirt stains off of her skin. He pays special attention to her fingernails until they are white, not a speck of brown left under them. He saves her hair for last, gently pulling apart the tangled waves before washing them. By the end of it Hungary is practically melted against him, her skin smelling so clean and her hair as soft as silk.

~!~

Hungary is a girl who used to think she was a boy.

When she is the one pressing him into the mattress, sometimes Austria thinks a part of her still does.

~!~

Very occasionally, and only because it makes Hungary happy, Austria wears a dress. It's always one that Hungary made herself, richly embroidered, and it rarely goes beyond their bedroom.

The first time, Hungary had practically begged him for months and offered to make gundel palacsinta and other sweets every day for several weeks. When he finally gives in, Hungary produces a wig in an instant and sits him down to make him up. The bristles of the make-up brush keep tickling his face and Hungary keeps telling him to unscrunch it. For the final touch, she takes the flower out of her hair and tucks it behind his ear, just the way he does to her every day. After getting him dressed she pulls him in front of a mirror and. She has actually made him look like a woman.

When Hungary pulls on men's clothes, it makes such a strange image. How did she get her chest so flat? Did she actually shave her face? And Austria is still taller than her – the mirror shows a husband shorter than his wife.

"Don't we look great?" Hungary asks.

More 'odd' than 'great', Austria thinks, but he makes a vaguely affirmative noise. Hungary beams and takes his arm and leads him into a dance.

~!~

Cleaning Hungary's wounds after she gets into a fight with Prussia is not as fun or as nice as cleaning dirt off of her. For one thing, blood gets everywhere and if Austria isn't careful it will stain. For another, Hungary keeps twitching and wincing and complaining when he swabs alcohol over her cuts. And the two of them managed to mess up the kitchen, this time, so now there is at least an hour's worth of cleaning to look forward to.

Hungary thanks him when he finishes and he presses a kiss to her forehead before they both rise to get the cleaning rags.

~!~

Austria _hates_ cleaning. It's similar to gardening, only worse, because it never truly gets finished, and there's no way to avoid it, since Hungary is his wife and not his maid and she _insists_ that he help keep the house livable.

So Austria ends up on his hands and knees sweeping ashes out of the fireplace, or perhaps scrubbing the dust off of the windows, or polishing the stove black. Whatever he does, he will end up exhausted by the end of the day, clothes in need of a wash and hair coated in some kind of dust. Hungary rubs his back and arms after their bath and runs her fingers through his hair until every strand is back in place.

~!~

Sometimes when they go riding, Hungary will urge her horse into a gallop across a field while Austria waits for her. She looks like she is flying, _born_ to ride into war.

~!~

Every year, on Hungary's birthday, Austria climbs a mountain to pick some edelweiss to tuck lovingly behind her ear.

Every year on his birthday, Hungary gives him the same kind of flowers, pressed between the pages of a book of music.


End file.
